Shaping Sustainable Messaging for the Blue Bioeconomy at the Mission Arena 2024 The blue economy has become a coin term for the sustainable use of ocean and coastal resources for economic growth while preserving the health of marine ecosystems. Our AlgaePro BANOS project team joined Mission Arena 3 in Amsterdam, Netherlands to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing the North Sea region from marine pollution and biodiversity loss to overfishing and security. Over the course of two days in November 2024, over 300 participants came together for collaborating and co-designing the blue future of the North Sea region and tackling the issues such as the multi-use of space, Mariparks, smart sea and security, marine protection and marine energy production. The CSCP co-hosted the workshop on “Green messaging for blue growth” and discussed with the 40 participants how the sustainability benefits of algae-based products can be communicated to consumers, end-users, and regulators. The workshop was conducted in a world café format: for each of the start-ups involved in the AlgaePro BANOS project, their business models was described along each stage of a life cycle (resources, production, logistics, use phase/product, end-of-life) at a dedicated workshop table. Based on this, the project team collected ideas and feedback on potential sustainability claims for each stage of the life cycle, also taking into account interdependencies between the different stages. For most of the start-ups, cost-competitiveness compared to conventional alternatives came out as one of the core challenges. Therefore, the identification of communicable, and therefore priceable, sustainability aspects of their products was confirmed as an important leverage for defining USPs of the start-ups. The feedback gathered during the workshop will play an important role in the following co-creation processes with the startups and downstream stakeholders, which will take place in 2025 as part of the AlgaePro BANOS project. The event Mission Arena is part of the the EU-funded Mission Ocean lighthouse BlueMissionBANOS and aims to inspire, engage, and support stakeholders across the BANOS area in taking positive action to reach Mission Ocean objectives. The AlgaePro BANOS project works toward showcasing the economic potential of sustainably sourced algae-based products by developing and improving eight product value chains of the project’s pilot partners. For further questions, please contact Pawel Zylka.